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Battle

ceeded five thousand men. With this meager force he was soon confronted at Trenton by a large body of troops of Princeton. under Cornwallis. Escape seemed impossible, for the river was filled with floating ice; and to risk a battle with a force so much superior, seemed full of peril. Knowing that several regiments of the enemy were at Princeton to join Cornwallis, he quickly broke up his camp during the night, leaving the fires burning so as to deceive the British, and rapidly marched towards that place. At sunrise, the van of his forces met, near Princeton, the British regiments already on the march. At first the American militia gave way; but Washington, coming up with a select corps, turned the tide of battle and routed the enemy. The British loss was severe that of the Americans, though not so great, included one of their best officers, the brave General Mercer (Jan. 3, 1777). After this victory, Washington retired to the heights of Morristown, where he took up his quarters for the rest of the winter.

Lafayette joins the Americans.

50. Among the men of Washington's army, "there was one, a young and gallant stranger, who had left the blushing vine-hills of his delightful France. The people whom he came to succor were not his people he knew them only in the melancholy story of their wrongs. He was no mercenary wretch, striving for the spoil of the vanquished: the palace acknowledged him for its lord, and the valleys yielded him their increase. He was no nameless man, staking life for reputation: he ranked among nobles, and looked unawed upon kings. He was no friendless outcast, seeking for a grave to hide his cold heart: he was girdled by the companions of his childhood, his kinsmen were about him, his wife was before him. Yet, from all these he turned away and came. Like a lofty tree, that shakes down its green glories to battle with the winter's storm, he flung aside the trappings of place and pride, to crusade for Freedom, in Freedom's holy land. He came; but not in the day of successful rebellion; not when the

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Expedition against Philadelphia.

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new-risen sun of Independence had burst the cloud of time, and careered to its place in the heavens. He came when darkness curtained the hills, and the tempest was abroad in its anger; when the plow stood still in the field of promise, and briers cumbered the garden of beauty; when fathers were dying, and mothers were weeping over them; when the wife was binding up the gashed bosom of her husband, and the maiden was wiping the death-damp from the brow of her lover. He came when the brave began to fear the power of man, and the pious to doubt the favor of God. It was then that this one joined the ranks of a revolted people."

On

Expedition

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51. In vain did Howe, on the opening of Spring, strive to draw Washington into a general engagement. All his maneuvers were frustrated by the cautious skill and watchful prudence of the American commander. this account Washington was called the American Fa'-bi-us, from the resemblance of his policy to Philadelphia. that of the celebrated Roman general, who, contending with Hannibal, avoided engagements, and harassed him by continued delay. Howe, baffled in his attempts, and “ aware of the madness of trying to march to the Delaware against Philadelphia, through a hostile country, with such force on his rear," withdrew his troops to Staten Island. Thence, embarking on board the fleet of his brother, Lord Howe, he sailed to the Chesapeake and landed at the head of the bay. The destination of the fleet being unknown to Washington, he remained for several days in painful uncertainty about it. When, at length, the mystery was solved, he marched to the Brandywine, determined to make a stand for the defense of Philadelphia.

52. Here, at Chad's Ford, Brandywine creek, a battle was fought (Sept. 11); but the superior numbers of the enemy, aided by a stratagem secretly conducted, gave them the victory. A large part of their army made a circuit of several miles, crossed the creek above the ford, and while the Americans were attacked in front, marched round in the

ReadingNIA

Pottsgrove

White Marsh

Germantown

2

rear as at the battle of Long Island. The patriots were routed, notwithstanding the efforts and valor of their officers, among whom were Lafayette and Pulaski.1 The British soon after entered Philadelphia, in spite of the exertions of Washington to save it; but the greater part of their troops were quartered in and about the village of Germantown-then a suburb of Philadelphia, now a part of the city, to guard their new possession. Howe's expedi

PENN

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Paoli

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Chester

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CHAD'S
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Wilmington

Newcastle

ELAWARE

FORT MERCER

WARE R. Red Bank

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tion had been rewarded with success and the British were elated; but the patriots saw that if Howe meant to hold Philadelphia he had not force enough to do much else. Said Franklin, who had been sent to France to solicit aid for the Americans, and who was at Paris when the news of the disaster reached him: "It is not General Howe that has taken Philadelphia, it is Philadelphia that has taken General Howe."

53. So little were the Americans disheartened by their late reverses that in a few days Washington resolved to attack the enemy at Germantown. Accordingly, at sunrise, on the 4th of October, the English were unexpectedly Germantown. greeted by a charge from a strong force. It was a complete surprise; and, at first, the success was complete.

Battle of

1 Early in 1776, Congress sent Silas Deane to France, to solicit aid. He was afterwards joined by Franklin and Arthur Lee. While France could at that time give no assistance openly to the Americans, without incurring the hostility of Great Britain, she secretly sent them supplies of money, arms, provisions, and clothing. The Count Pulaski was a distinguished Polish nobleman, who had previously joined the American army as a volunteer soldier in the cause of liberty.

2 While the British were on their march to Philadelphia, Washington gave pursuit. The two armies met, and were on the point of engaging when a violent rain-storm prevented. Four days after, General Wayne, who had been sent by Washington to capture the enemy's baggage train, was surprised at Paoli, by a midnight attack, and defeated with great loss (Sept. 20.).

1777-8

The Dark Hour at Valley Forge.

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But a dense fog, which had rendered the surprise possible, finally frustrated the plans of Washington, who, seeing that the day was lost, ordered a retreat. During the following month the forts on the Delaware surrendered to the British, though not till after the assailants had suffered a severe repulse; and thus the approaches to Philadelphia were free to Lord Howe's fleet.

The

54. "During the winter of 1777-8, Washington went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. What a terrible time it was for the hopes of America! Women who had once melted their pewter plates into bullets could not do it a second time. Here, within a day's march of the enemy's headquarters, there were not twelve Valley Forge. thousand soldiers. That winter they lay on the ground. So scarce were blankets that many were forced to sit up all night by their fires. At one time, more than a thousand

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army at

The

dark hour

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Valley Forge.

soldiers had not a shoe to their feet. We could trace their march by the blood which their naked feet left in the ice." 55. Out of the cold white snow rose the leafless forests, dark and spectral; and the wind swept in fierce gusts down the valley, or sighed and moaned around the thatched roofs of the huts. From the huts themselves came few signs of life, but the smoke that swayed to and fro over the chimneys at the will of the blast, and the shivering sentinels at the officers' doors, and now and then, as you passed along, a half-naked soldier peering from a door, and muttering, in an ominous undertone, 'No bread, no soldier.' If you ventured within, hungry nakedness met you on the threshold. In the streets, you would meet parties of soldiers yoked together to little carriages of their own contriving, and dragging their wood and provisions from the storehouse to their huts. . . . There were regular parades, too, at guard-mounting; and sometimes grand parades, in which you would see men half naked holding their rusty firelocks with hands stiffened with cold, and officers shielding themselves from the cold in a kind of dressing-gown made out of an old blanket or faded bed-quilt."

St.Johns

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Westport Vergennes

Crown Point

Mt.

Ticonderoga Independence

56. Meanwhile, stirring events had occurred in the north. With the design of separating New England from the rest of the Burgoyne's Union, by taking posinvasion. session of Lake Champlain and the valley of the Hudson, General Burgoyne (bur-goin'), commanding an army of ten thousand British and German troops, Canadians and Indians, had moved from Canada and invaded New York. Having captured two forts on Lake Champlain Crown Point and Ticonderoga 1-he advanced southward; but his march was slow and difficult, for General Schuyler, the commander of the American forces, had obstructed his way by destroying the bridges and felling immense trees across the roads. Burgoyne had previously sent Colonel St. Leger against Fort Schuy-BURGOYNES SENDER ler, formerly called Fort Stanwix, on the Mohawk. Finding the fort resolutely defended by Colonel Gansevoort, St. Leger, with his motley force of royalists and Indians, commenced a siege. Two days later, General Herkimer, while advancing to the relief of the place with a body of militia, fell into an ambuscade at O-ris'-ka-ny, was defeated, and mortally wounded.

Saratoga.

THE TWO BATTIES

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'General St. Clair was in command at Ticonderoga. He had determined upon a resolute defense, but discovering to his dismay, that the British had erected batteries on Mount Defiance, a rocky height commanding the fort, he made a hasty retreat. His army crossed over to Vermont, but at Hubbardton was overtaken and routed. The ammunition and stores, which had been sent by water, were also overtaken and were destroyed,

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